Founding Fathers of Model Aviation: Frank Zaic 1912-2005

By John WorthPhotos courtesy of the authorAs seen in the November 2005 issue of Model Aviation.Aeromodeling lost one of its greatest pioneers and a key figure in the establishment of the Academy of Model Aeronautics in the mid-1930s when Frank Zaic passed away in May 2005 at age 93. Frank was born in Slovenia (in Europe) in 1912, where he built his first model airplane at age 4. World War I prevented him from doing any further modeling until 10 years later. Frank arrived in New York City with his brother John in 1922 and settled there, and they began building model airplanes again…